


TL;DR - A FF4 Novle

by Spaceman_Spiff



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Gallows Humor, Humor, Inappropriate Humor, Multi, Parody, Satire, Sexual Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-05-29 19:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 6,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6389650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spaceman_Spiff/pseuds/Spaceman_Spiff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An account of the events of Final Fantasy IV told in flash fiction style, possibly abridged, maybe drabble, or just mindless stupidity, I'm not sure. Briefly follow Cecil as he looks for shiny things. Expect heinous debauchery, horrendous dialogue, and an absolute disrespect for the storyline. This goes out to anyone who can't stand reading for more than 30 seconds at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. So Shiny!

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not support this message.

             So I killed a bunch of mages today and took a shiny crystal from them that supposedly has some pretty righteous powers. I guess I’m pretty conflicted about it, but this crystal is pretty damn shiny. I like shiny things. My armor, unfortunately, is not shiny. It’s quite dark actually. My name is Cecil. Cecil Harvey. I’m a dark knight. Hence the dark armor.

            Now my men are blathering about some monsters, but I just want to look at this shiny crystal. I have no idea why the soldier on his knees beside me is crying. What a baby.

            “Back to your post, underling!” I shout at him, just as a Float Eye snatches him up and carries him off. Float Eyes. What strange monsters! They’re just teeth, wings, claws, and one eye. How do they have any depth perception to adequately snatch _anything_?!

Anywho, I need to stop this incessant screaming from my men, so I put my shiny crystal away and draw my sword. It is _not_ shiny. Why the hell did I ever become a dark knight? Why can’t I be the knight in _shining_ armor? Talk about your bad career moves. But this sword is pretty sweet. It cuts pretty much anything. Float Eyes. Imps. The onions for my sandwiches. Not pudding, though. Or jelly, for that matter.

Where was I? Oh right, the Float Eyes that have already eaten half of my crew. So I slice ‘em up real nice, just like the pastrami I had on the way to Mysidia. So good! But then this Zu comes along, and now I’m thinking dinner plans. A rack of those ribs would be mighty good when I get home.

So I take care of the beasts on my own, as usual. Worthless NPCs. Now they want me to give some speech about why we’re doing all of this. I just want to eat some Zu and look at this shiny crystal. But they won’t stop harassing me, so I stand at the fore and come up with something that will hopefully shut them up.

“The King is nuts, everyone. That is all.”

The silence that follows is like music to my ears. I go back to my cabin, dragging this damned bird across the deck as I go. Everyone just stares. Why the hell won’t they help me carry this thing? Maybe I should have offered them some? Nah, they didn’t help me kill it so to hell with them.

I drop the bloody carcass down one of the hatches, and I wait for the satisfying thud when it hits the deck below. Of course, I also hear the cry of a soldier screaming to the heavens “Why! Oh Why!” as the damn thing apparently landed on him. He’ll be fine.

I head back to my cabin to look at my shiny new crystal. So shiny!


	2. Da King!

So when I get back to Baron there is this guy, Captain Beigan, there to greet me. Let me be the first to say that this guy is a royal tool! There are few people that I would honestly like to strangle…well okay maybe more than a few. There was that guy in the market yesterday that sold me a bad batch of snake oil. It did _not_ work! And then that soldier earlier today that would _not_ stop crying about the damn Zu that I dropped on his head. Whatever.

Anychoo, this guy Beigan tells me that the King wants to see me, that he wants my shiny new crystal. I tell him to go stick his head somewhere smelly. He just smiles and tells me that my wit has never been sharper. I’m not exactly sure what a “wit” is, but I guarantee it is not as sharp as my blade. Or the cheddar cheese I can cut with it. That reminds me, I need to stop by the store and pick up some cheese on my way out next time.

“So how is Da King these days?” I ask the tool as I follow him through the castle.

“You will refer to His Majesty by his title, you mindless twit!”

“Look, dude, Da raised me since I was orphaned here. We’re tight,” I remind the smug bastard. “And it’s not my fault his last name is King.”

The royal douche doesn’t have anything else to say, apparently. Guess I shut him up good. We enter this tiny room that you have to walk through just before the throne room and Beigan tells me to wait here. I’m okay with that. I can look at this shiny crystal some more. I’m not sure why they made this room so small. It would make for a good trap to lock some sucker in here and cave the walls in on him. Maybe I should try something like that on Beigan one day.

“Da King…I mean, His Majesty will see you now,” Beigan interrupts my shiny time with the crystal. No matter. My plan for his demise is pretty solid. Just have to figure out how to lock him in this tiny room.

I walk into the throne room and Da King is up there on his throne looking pretty awesome. I’d like to be king one day. I bet he has all kinds of shiny things. That crown is pretty damn shiny. So is his bald spot. Man how does he get that so shiny!

“Give me the crystal, Cecil.”

“I’m gonna say no.”

“You defy me?!”

“Yes.”

“Then you can’t have the Red Wings anymore!”

“Dude, seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Still no.”

“What if I give you this shiny ring?”

The ring is so friggin’ shiny I can’t stand it.

“Deal!”

“Now take it to Mist on the morrow! And take Kain with you!”

“Your Majesty I come to defend Cecil’s honor!” my good friend, Kain the Baboon yells as he bursts into the throne room. He’s actually a Dragoon. He hates it when I call him a Baboon.

“Too late, dude, I already got the ring,” I tell him. “But you can totally come with.”

“Righteous!”

 


	3. Hot Stuff!

So Kain and I are standing out in the hall looking at this shiny ring. It’s probably the shiniest thing I’ve ever seen. It has some words on it, I think it says “Bomb” or something, but who cares, it’s so shiny!

“That’s a really shiny ring,” Kain tells me. Like I can’t see that?

“Yeah, I can’t wait to show it off to all the folks in Mist. They’re gonna be so jealous!”

“You know there’s, like, a dragon there that eats people?”

“C’mon, Kain, you don’t actually believe that do you?”

Kain, God bless him, is one of those conspiracy theorists that believes the most ridiculous ideas floating around out there. The best one was when he told me that there are these “moon people” that are just waiting to take over the planet. What a crock!

“You just wait and see, buddy, I bet you a chocobo turd that I’m right,” Kain replies, grinning like a baboon. You see why I call him a baboon now, right?

“Dude, no one, and I mean _no one_ is stockpiling chocobo turds to use as currency when the New World Order takes over. You need to let it go!”

“Whatever, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Kain leaves so I can get back to looking at my shiny new ring. I start to make my way back to my room, and people keep yelling at me to watch where I’m going, but if they had a shiny ring like mine they wouldn’t be complaining so much. At some point I do finally look up and realize I’m lost. I’ve never seen this part of the castle before. It smells like chocobo turds.

“Hey, I _said_ that I would see you in the morning!” Kain yells at me from the corner where he throws a few more turds on the pile.

“Sick, dude. Just sick.”

I make my leave as quickly as possible. Finally I get out into some fresh air, but I can’t walk five steps without someone accosting me. And it’s my girlfriend, no less. She’s pretty, but she’s not shiny. Except when she wears that gold bikini. Yowsah!

“Hey Cecil, I heard you killed a bunch of people in Mysidia,” she says, acting like it was a big deal or something. “How do you feel about that?”

“I’m sorry, did you say something? I couldn’t hear you over the shininess of my new ring!”

“Oh wow, that is gorgeous!”

That’s why I love her. She loves shiny things, too. That’s why she doesn’t mind wearing the gold bikini for me.

“Why don’t you come up to my room tonight and maybe I’ll…try it on for you.”

“Oh Cecil,” she says with a coy grin. “You’re on!”

She’ll be wearing the bikini. I know it. Let me be the first to tell you that that girl is hot stuff.


	4. Ring Play!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I do not approve this message.

So I know I told Rosa to come up to my room tonight, but with this sweet new ring, I decided to hit the town, instead. It’s Gals n’ Glitter night at Cid’s tavern. Baron’s finest burlesque show…with glitter. Could this day get any better?

            “Aye, Cecil!” the fat man struts up to me, covered in axle grease and smelling worse than Kain’s secret stash. I honestly might vomit if he doesn’t get away from me soon.

            “Dude, Cid, did you just come from the airship docks?”

            “Aye, ye wee little mongrel,” he says with a laugh as he slaps my back, a handprint of black oil left behind.

            “Well this has been fun, but I’m gonna go put my face in some cleavage,” I say as I leave him to his business. So I’m getting my groove on, throwing some gil on the stage when it hits me. Rosa’s gold bikini! How could I forget that sweet shiny little diddy!

            So I book it out of town and back to my room, and there she is, looking oh so good on the sill of my window, the moonlight glinting off her shiny…shiny…shiny…shi—

            “Where have you been you jerk!”

            “I was, um—”

            “Don’t you _dare_ say you were at Gals n’ Glitter!”

            “Okay, I wasn’t at Gals n’ Glitter.”

“Well, that’s good.”

Man, I’m good at this. She has no idea. I pull out the ring and I see her eyes light up like the sun. Well maybe not quite as bright as the sun. I would be blind if they lit up like the sun. Maybe more like the moon. Not a full moon, mind you, but maybe a three-quarters moon.

“Will you…put it on?” she asks as she bites her bottom lip.

“Hell yeah, baby!”

I take my dark, unshiny gauntlet off and begin to slide the ring on my finger. She shudders with pleasure as she watches. The ring slides to my first knuckle and I swear it looks like she’s drooling. I move closer to make sure she sees it slide down to the second knuckle, and she gasps with a grin as she grabs the wall for support. I move in closer as I finally push the ring as far as it will go and she…falls out the window.

“Rosa!” I scream as she disappears over the edge.

“I’m okay, the net caught me!”

Yeah, so this has happened before. So many times, in fact, that Da King decided it was well worth it to install a safety net to catch all the women that have “accidently” fallen out of my window. I look down as she waves up at me from the bottom of the tower.

“We must do this again, sometime!” she yells up at me.

“Sure thing, babe!”

I’ve _got_ to install a safety rail or something.

“Be safe in Mist! Come back with something shiny for me!”

“You got it, sweet cheeks!”

The light of the moon dances on her gold bikini, and I know exactly what I’ll be dreaming about tonight. My shiny new ring!


	5. Catching Chocobos!

So the next morning Kain and I meet up in the castle, somewhere hopefully far away from where I found him the day before. I can still smell it on him, though. I shudder at the thought. I mean, seriously! Who the hell thinks that _anyone_ will _ever_ consider chocobo feces as a form of currency?

            He looks like he’s ready to go, though. He got all the supplies we needed, including the latest edition of Gals n’ Glitter magazine. Gotta love this guy.

            “So are we gonna hike the whole trip or should we—” Kain begins, but I know exactly where he’s going with this.

            “No! _Hell_ no!”

“What?”

“I’d rather hike across the ocean than go to the chocobo forest with you!”

“Alright, but I heard someone left something shiny with the fat chocobo there.”

Damn him. He knows me too well. I try to be strong but the temptation is just too much.

“Fine, but we get in, get the shiny thing, get a chocobo and that’s it!”

“Sure sure…” Kain replies, trailing off with something I probably don’t want to hear.

So we leave the castle and the village of Baron behind, trekking across the most beautiful landscape on this little planet we live on. At least that’s what Kain tells me. My face is buried in Gals n’ Glitter.

“We’re here,” Kain whispers, trying not to scare any of the birds in the clearing.

“Did you pack some greens for the fat chocobo?”

“Um…”

“Dude, not cool.”

He played me like one of those cross-dressing dancers in Fabul. If he wasn’t my best friend I might have thrashed him across the forest, but I had to admit he got me.

“Alright, well let’s catch a couple of chocobos and get the hell outta here!”

So the trick to catching a chocobo is that you have to act like a chocobo. I don’t mean just getting into the mindset of the bird, I mean actually _acting_ like a chocobo. You put your hands on your ribs so your arms look like wings, you flap them around while you peck at grass and shrubs. Chocobos are surprisingly gullible. So much so that I’m not sure how they haven’t yet been weeded out through natural selection.

So I’m flapping my “wings” and letting out the occasional “wark” as I move in on this speedy looking bird. Those yellow feathers look pretty sleek, and I definitely want to make sure my steed is faster than Kain’s. Speaking of, I haven’t even heard him “wark” yet, but I can’t focus on that. I’m so close I can almost touch it, but I can’t move in yet. I bend down and grab a mouthful of grass and offer it to the chocobo. It takes my offering, and in a tender moment, it evacuates its bowels as a show of its consent.

That’s when I see Kain out of the corner of my eye, a burlap sack in his hands as he catches the chocobo’s fresh droppings before they even hit the ground.

“Dude, what the _hell_ are you doing!”

“Just these and that’s it, I promise!”

I might have to kill him.


	6. What Dragon?

So I’ve got to hand it to Kain. Despite the fact that his sack full of dung makes me want to puke every time I catch a whiff of it, it has driven away any and all monsters on our way to the caves of Mist. I mean, we _saw_ some monsters, but as soon as they got upwind of our stench they turned the other way. Who would’ve thunk it? Nature’s monster repellent!

            We enter the caves and the fog is so thick that I can’t see my shiny new ring anymore, which really ticks me off. I want to push through this wretched place as quickly as possible, but Kain is being a sissy because he heard about some dragon here that eats people. I would carry him through this cave but then his stink would be all over me.

            “Did you hear that?” Kain whispers with fear.

            “Yeah, that was me…farting in your general direction.”

            Let’s see how _he_ likes the stink!

            “No no, it sounded like a dragon!”

            “Dude, let’s get one thing straight. There. Is. No. Dragon!”

            “I am the Dragon of Mist!” a voice howls through the cave.

            Well isn’t that just peachy. I mean how often does something like this happen? One person says there is no dragon, and then a dragon says _here I am_! The timing is just absurd! I have to play this cool, though, I can’t let Kain win this one.

            “I don’t see any dragon, Kain.”

            “What about that huge dragon right over there, blocking the exit to the cave?”

            “Doesn’t look like a dragon to me. Looks more like a serpent.”

            “How can you say that?” Kain says incredulously. “It’s _clearly_ a dragon!”

            “But you see how the head isn’t well defined? How it just kind of blends in with the neck? Classic serpent morphology.”

            “But it _said_ it was a dragon!” Kain comes back, not giving up.

            “Since when do dragons understand our taxonomic classification systems? Maybe it _wishes_ it was a dragon so it just tells people that, hoping they don’t know any better?”

            “Silence you fools! I _am_ the Dragon of Mist!”

            “Sounds like overcompensation to me.”

            “You’re right, Cecil,” Kain finally concedes. “Just a common serpent.”

            “You will feel my wrath, knights of Baron!”

            So at this point I was going to continue bantering with this slithering inferiority complex, but since Kain decided in his baboon brain that I was right, he got the courage to actually fight the damn thing. I must say I’m impressed with his skill. He took ballerina classes in his youth, so he was a natural candidate for the dragoons. He dances on the back of the drago…I mean serpent, his spear not unlike the pole in the Gals n’ Glitter show. Spin. Pirouette. Leap. Triple Axle. Reverse Somersault. Thrust. _Fin_.

            “You really showed that dragon, Kain,” I commend him, as the beast melts away into a luminous silver liquid that seeps through the cracks in the floor. Kain gives me a look like he couldn’t find his way out of an Eblani finger trap.

            “What dragon?”

           

 


	7. It Burns!

So we finally make it out of the cave and walk into the village of Mist. There’s some commotion as we approach. They’re probably just excited to see someone other than their family members: parents and children, cousins and spouses, the latter of which are often one in the same. It’s well known that the people of Mist suffer terribly from inbreeding. But, hey, when you choose to be isolated in some valley where the only way someone can reach you is through a musty cave full of dragons or walking a hundred miles through the god forsaken heat of the Kaipo desert, you’re pretty much bringing it on yourself.

“They look like nice people,” Kain comments as a man gives him a hand gesture that looks anything but nice.

“Does that guy have a third arm growing out of his hip?”

“I think they call that a _vestigial_ limb.”

“Can you even _spell_ vestigial, Kain?”

I know he can’t, but I’m willing to watch him squirm as he tries. Unfortunately, I’m not afforded the pleasure, as my shiny new ring starts to get really hot on my finger, and not in the good way.

“Dude, my ring…it burns!”

“I think they make a cream for that.”

“You mean that snake oil in the village market? Tried it. Totally bogus!”

“Really? I bought some the other day for my hemorrhoids and it cleared it right up.”

The last thing I want to hear about is Kain’s hemorrhoids, and lucky for me things take a turn toward the crazy. My shiny new ring literally explodes, like a bomb. Not the whole thing, just the shiny stone on top that said “Bomb” on it. Huh. Now that I think about it that’s a pretty crazy coincidence.

Anyhoop, after my ring explodes the whole village goes up in flames, almost like the time Kain farted near a torch and burned down the chocobo stables in Baron. People are running around screaming, and combined with the smoke I’m starting to get a pretty righteous headache.

“It burns!” screams the man with three arms, his body smoldering and black as he rolls on the ground.

“They make a cream for that!” Kain yells to the man.

“Dude, I think he’s dead.”

“Ah. They do _not_ have a cream for _that._ ”

“Mommy!” the voice of a nearby child rings out.

“Did you hear that?” Kain grabs my arm tightly. “I think that was a dragon!”

“It’s this little girl right here, dude. The one right next to us clutching her dead mother.”

“Oh good,” Kain sighs with relief. “I was worried that after we killed that serpent in the cave that it might have attracted a _real_ dragon.”

“You killed my mommy!”

The girl goes from cute to psycho in seconds flat. Her face is like a raging bull, her cries like a banshee, and her eyes…they begin to shine! They are _so_ shiny! That’s when things take a turn towards the hallucinogenic, for this towering man appears out of nowhere. His eyes are shiny, too! His fists are _not_ shiny, however. And when those fists hit the ground everything goes black.


	8. Shiny Girl!

So I wake up in the valley with this girl. Wow, how many times have I said _that_ before? But this girl is way too young for me. I’m talking, like, illegal-in-every-country-and-sovereign-territory young. But her eyes were so shiny! They’re not shiny now. That’s probably because she’s unconscious.

Speaking of shiny things, my new ring is gone. Now I’m angry. First, Da King takes my shiny new crystal. Then, he gives me this shiny ring that blows up in my face?! That’s it! I’ve had it! I’ve never been treated so cruelly in my life! I _will_ have my vengeance!!

My only hope is that I can somehow get this girl to make her eyes all shiny again. She’s all I have left. Even Kain apparently decided to run away. He probably thought he saw a dragon or something. No worries. I’ll just take this girl to the nearest…the nearest…sand dune?

Now I’m really screwed. The only way out of here is across the Kaipo desert, and I haven’t even started working on my base tan for beach week. I’m _so_ gonna peel! Maybe they have snake oil at the markets in Kaipo. I hear that stuff works wonders on sunburn.

Anywok, I suck it up and start trekking across the dunes and pretty soon I start hallucinating. I swear there is an ice cream stand on the next sand dune, but surely it must be a mirage. I get closer and it’s still there, but there is _no way_ that an ice cream stand would be in the middle of a desert.

“Would you care for some ice cream, traveler?”

A talking mirage. That’s a new one on me.

“If you were real, I would absolutely take some.”

“I _am_ real.”

“Dude, you’re clearly a mirage. No one sets up an ice cream stand in the middle of a desert.”

At this point the man looks offended, like I’ve insulted his entire family business of selling ice cream in the desert for centuries, or something. He takes a scoop of vanilla and throws it in my face. The cold, sticky sensation is very convincing. I politely ask for a waffle cone with two scoops.

The guy was nice enough to also give me directions, and when we get to Kaipo it’s nightfall. I look for the nearest burlesque show, but apparently they don’t have one in Kaipo. What kind of crap is that?! After all the effort of crossing a _huge_ desert a guy can’t even stick his face in some cleavage as a reward? Blasphemy!

I take the girl to the Inn after I’m done fuming, and the innkeeper gives us a free night’s stay because I keep badgering him about bringing a burlesque show to Kaipo. I tuck her in and she finally wakes up. Seriously? She wakes up _now_?! She couldn’t have woken up during the trip and actually _walked_ at least _some_ of the way?!

Her eyes look scared, but not shiny. How do I get them shiny again? I don’t have time to think of a plan because some soldiers from Baron burst into the Inn looking for me.

“Cecil, you will hand over the girl, immediately!”

“I’m gonna say no.”

“Then off with your head!”

Who says that?

“Baron has taken all my shiny things, and for that I can never forgive you!”

Naturally, I’m a badass with a badass sword. I can’t dance like Kain, but that’s because I’m not a little ninny ballerina. I disarm the soldiers quickly and they run like sissies. Like Kain running from a dragon. I turn back to the girl whose eyes are _still_ not shiny.

“Thank you, mister,” she says quietly. “My name is Rydia.”

“Hi Rydia. I’m Cecil. And don’t worry, I will protect you from anyone and anything that tries to hurt you.”

“Thank you,” she says with a smile. Her eyes are _still_ not shiny.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Okay.”

“Can you make your eyes shiny again?”

 

 


	9. Shiny Bird!

So I’m talking to this old woman in the village, trying to find out if there is some kind of secret burlesque show that only the locals know about. I figured she’s really old, so she would probably know. I sent Rydia to the market to get all of our supplies, assuming that with her cute little prepubescent face she could get everything for free. I’m saving my gil for cleavage. And some more snake oil for my sunburn.

            Where was I? Oh right, this old woman who is currently disrobing in front of me, clearly misunderstanding my inquiry. I try to tell her to stop but she’s already nude and her wrinkled, droopy, pock-marked, old-person-smelly body is suddenly thrust upon me. I try to fight her off, but she’s surprisingly strong! Lucky for me she seems to suffer some kind of aneurysm, but at least she dies with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. I shove her off of me and walk away discretely, making sure that no one saw what just transpired. I assume the village refuse collector will take care of it when he makes the rounds.

“She had the most odd-looking apparel,” I overhear a villager talking. “Her rather skimpy garments were made of gold!”

“Poor dear, they found her this morning,” another villager chimes in. “She had been stricken with the Desert Fever.”

“Excuse me, but did you say this woman was wearing a gold bikini?”

“Is that what you people from Baron call it?”

“What do you mean by _you people_?”

“You know…sodomites.”

“Okay, I’m gonna pretend I didn’t just hear that. Anyway, was this gold bikini by any chance shiny?”

“Oh yes, it was _quite_ shiny!”

I knew it could only be one person. Unless Kain was trying to play a trick on me. He tried that once and I had to kick his ass for it. I doubt he would try it again.

Just then Rydia comes up to me with this big, shiny chocobo. Yes, that’s right. A _shiny_ chocobo. I could have kissed her, but like I said she’s _way_ too young for me. It’s carrying a week’s worth of supplies strapped in saddlebags. She’s good.

“Where did you find that thing?”

“I summoned it,” she says so nonchalant, as though everyone she’s ever met in her short little life knows exactly what she’s talking about.

“You did what now?”

“I summoned it.”

Are kids always this annoyingly repetitive?

“You mean, like, you whistled and it came to you?”

“I _summoned_ it!”

Okay, this game is getting old. If she hadn’t just brought me this big, shiny bird then I’d have dropped her off on someone’s doorstep by now.

“We’ll talk about this later. Right now I have a hot date with a girl in a gold bikini!”

The villagers point me to an old cottage, and when I knock an old man answers the door.

“Can I help you, sonny boy?”

“Where’s the girl in the gold bikini?”

“Is _that_ what you people in Baron call it?”

“Yeah yeah, we’re all sodomites down in Baron, I heard that one already. Can you just take me to her?”

He brings me inside and she’s lying in a bed wrapped in blankets, looking all hot and sweaty, and _not_ in the good way.

“She’s got the Desert Fever, sonny.”

“Is it contagious?”

“No.”

“Is it an STD?”

“A what?”

“Nevermind.”


	10. Hot Stuff! Wait, didn’t I already us that one?

So Rosa finally stirs after about an hour, which was about how long it took me to get my hands out of the Eblani finger trap that the old man gave me to play with. Those things are a bitch, man! I remember this one time that Kain thought it would be funny to stick his finger in one end and the bottom of the chandelier in the main hall on the other. He dangled there for about a week before anyone ever bothered to get him down. They thought he was a prisoner of war being tortured before the court or something. I probably should have told someone but I totally forgot about him. Gals n’ Glitter was having a marathon show that week.

            Anyso, Rosa just looks at me with these sad puppy dog eyes, the kind that makes your heart melt, until the little bastard bites your pinky toe off! Sorry, scarring childhood experience coming up to the surface there. I lift my hand to put it on her forehead, but she looks at it like it’s some grotesque, disfigured limb.

            “Where’s your shiny new ring?!”

            “It exploded in my face.”

            “How did _that_ happen?”

            “Da King set me up. I already swore my vengeance against him, though. It’s cool.”

            “So no shiny new crystal and no shiny new ring?”

            “I know, what is this world coming to?”

            “I don’t know if life is worth living anymore.”

            “Don’t say that, hot buns. I found a little girl in Mist who has shiny eyes. _And_ she found a shiny chocobo, too!”

            “Oh, Cecil, life is beautiful and so worth living again!”

            Talk about an emotional rollercoaster. Are you crying right now, too?

            “So the old man here tells me you have Desert Fever.”

            “Is it contagious?”

            “He said no.”

            “Is it an STD?”

            “I asked. After explaining to the guy what an STD was, all I got was an earful of sodomites _this_ and sodomites _that_. So I’m gonna say no.”

            “Is there a cure?”

            “I have to go to Damcyan and get a Sand Pearl. They’re supposed to be _really_ shiny!”

            “You would do that for me, Cecil?”

            “Of course I will, sweet lips.”

            Truth is, I just want one of those shiny pearls. The old man wouldn’t shut up about how it rivaled the shiniest of diamonds in all the land, mostly because I wouldn’t _let_ him shut up about it. No seriously, he tried multiple times to end the conversation, until finally he handed me that damn Eblani finger trap, and I went into warrior focus mode trying to get out of it.

            “Well then get your sweet little ass outta here and get me that shiny Sand Pearl!”

            “You got it, babe!”

            I love this girl. Almost as much as I love shiny things. I turn to leave, but she calls out to me once more.

            “Hey, Cecil, where did that handprint on your back come from?”

            “Oh, that was from Cid when I was at Gals n’ Glitter the other night.”

            “WHAT?!”

            Damn, I walked right into that one.

           


	11. Shiny Feathers!

 

So I bolt outta that cottage faster than explosive diarrhea on a diet of hot coffee and laxatives. Luckily, Rydia and her shiny chocobo are waiting right outside. I grab the little scamp and mount that bird faster than Kain can count to one, which is actually pretty slow, but I’m mounting a giant bird with a kid in my lap, gimme a break!

The old man gave me a map to the caves that lead to Damcyan, but I can’t read it or I’ll get chocobo sick, so I hand it forward to Rydia. She seems pretty bright, except for her tendency to repeat the same thing over and over. Really it was just that one time, but it still drives me crazy!

While she steers this oversized chicken, I take the opportunity to pluck some of these shiny feathers to take back with me. I plan to make a headdress so Rosa and I can engage in a little avian role-play when we get back. We’ll see who gets whom to consent first! Wow, maybe we really _are_ sodomites.

“What are you doing?” Rydia asks out of the blue.

“Nothing.”

I pick a few more feathers.

“ _What_ are you doing?”

Here we go again.

“Nothing, I told you.”

I find the biggest, shiniest feather and I go for it.

“ _WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!_ ”

Not only is she annoyingly repetitive, but she apparently suffers from voice modulation disorder. This pretty much puts the nail in the coffin for any ideas I ever had about having kids.

“Must I be as needlessly repetitive as you? I told you I’m not doing anything!”

“My chocobo says you’re plucking his feathers.”

“Oh, so you speak chocobo, do you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, well…that’s neat, I guess.”

I toss the feathers into the wind behind me as she turns to look back at me with a suspicious glare. I just smile as convincingly as possible. When she turns back around I pluck a few more out of spite, only to see her point her finger back at me. A shiny blue light forms at its tip and I’m mesmerized right up to the point that a blast of ice hits me in the chest. I soil myself as I roll off the back of the chocobo.

“Are you going to pick any more feathers off my chocobo?”

I hear her small yet commanding voice coming from the shadow of the bird towering over me. I try to sound tough, but it just comes out as a squeak. I think I might have fractured a few vertebrae along with my pride.

“No…”

“Then get up and let’s go you big sissy. I didn’t hit you _that_ hard.”

I manage to collect myself and climb back aboard the bird and we continue on our way to the caves.

“What is that smell?” she asks.

“Nothing.”

“ _What_ is that smell?”

I think I might just go ahead and cry now.

 


	12. Dirty Old Man!

 

           

So I manage to convince Rydia to wait outside the cave while I go in and “secure the area” or something like that. Really, I just need to get my skid-marked undies off and burn the evidence. She asks why I’m taking the bag of fresh clothes with me, but I just pretend like I don’t hear her.

The inside of the cave smells pretty dank, and _not_ in the good way. I find a nice secluded corner and start ripping off my armor, and I’m nearly ready to vomit because the stink of my little brown surprise apparently baked in there like a dutch oven. So I’m butt naked from the waist down when I realize that I forgot the flint to light the fire. What the hell am I supposed to do with this shit?! This literal shit!!

“How do you do trav— _WHOA!_ ”

I turn my cheeks to see an old man shambling up to me, apparently startled by my little soldier…I mean my _big_ soldier….HUGE soldier, actually. Anyway, I’ve never been self-conscious about my manhood so I casually ask him for a light.

“Hey, old timer, you look like some kind of wizard or warlock or some other kind of crazy mage that likes to hang out in caves, could you light these clothes on fire for me?”

He doesn’t appear to have heard what I’ve said as he is fixated on my twig and berries…I mean my sausage and two taters…no wait, I have an even better one: my cannon and two rounds!

“Hey, my eyes are up here, dude!”

“So sorry, good sir, I’d be happy to take care of these clo— _what_ is that smell!”

“Don’t ask, just burn, dude.”

As he torches my crap with a fire spell I’m putting on some new underwear, but I catch him staring at my ass this time.

“Seeing as how we’ve just met, I’d hate to have to break your leg or something.”

“Oh my, my wandering eyes do betray me!”

“Yeah, well the show’s over,” I say as I slip my armored leggings back on. “Thanks for the help but I really should be going.”

“Wait!”

“No, I will _not_ show you my naked body for money! My therapist says I don’t need to do that anymore!”

Although, I _did_ make a _lot_ of gil doing that. _Way_ more than I make as Dark Knight, that’s for sure.

“Well that _wasn’t_ my next question, but good to know where we stand on that.”

“Oh, well…what can I do for you?”

“I could use a skilled warrior such as yourself to slay a mighty beast that lives in these caves.”

“Is it guarding something shiny?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then I’m gonna say no.”

“I’ll let you see _my_ naked body.”

“By the light of all that is holy and good, why the _hell_ would I want to see that?”

“Just checking.”

“I’ve already been molested by one wrinkled old person today, I’m good.”

Seriously, am I putting off some kind of geriatric sex pheromone or something?

“So then you _are_ open to the possibility?”

“No no, I didn’t mean—!”

“Ah, playing hard to get are we?”

“Let’s get this straight, old man. I _am not_ , have _not been_ , nor will I _ever_ _be_ open to the possibility!”

“Fine then. Your loss.”

“I’m sure.”

 


End file.
